Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM

From: Dave Jones <davej redhat com>

To: fedora-advisory-board redhat com

Subject: Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM

Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 12:26:12 -0500

On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 11:58:05AM -0500, Luis Villa wrote:
> I don't think the need (at least my need) is for a Fedora LTS; I
> merely ask for one *stable* release at a time that:
>
> (1) doesn't get new features/new upstream releases
Right now, rebases to newer kernel releases is the single provider
of the majority of bugfixes we get reported. If we stopped doing
that, we'd pretty much be giving up all hope of fixing kernel bugs.
It's already completely out of control (right now ~1000 open bugs),
and with the limited resources we have to attack this problem,
staying close to upstream so that we can get upstream involvement
in fixing bugs is our only hope.
Yes, occasionally there are regressions, but tbh these days this
happens to a much lesser extent.
As an avid bugzilla fan, you might be interested to see
the kernel bug count over time - http://people.redhat.com/davej/bugzilla-stats.txt
For the last six months, we've made pretty much zero overall progress
in reducing the overall count, despite hundreds of bugs being closed.
By taking away the ability to move to a new upstream, the number
of unfixed bugs will skyrocket. We already get a bad rap from some
users who claim the process is
= file bug
= bug sits there
= reaches end of life
= closed->nextrelease.
This will happen more and more if we stagnate on single versions.
Backporting fixes is a *ton* of work. We have a huge team of
people who do this exclusively for RHEL, and they don't even
get to cover everything, just the bugs deemed important.
Fedora gets a *lot* more bugs filed, and has a lot less manpower.
It's just a losing proposition from every angle from where I'm sitting.
Dave
--
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk